


someday i'll be so damn sublime

by taizi



Series: empty hands [2]
Category: Natsume Yuujinchou | Natsume's Book of Friends
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Anxiety Disorder, Childhood Friends, Families of Choice, Gen, Growing Up, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Panic Attacks, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, i love shibata so much bcus i have terrible taste, i will never change i will never improve that is a promise
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-23
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2019-11-29 00:13:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18215573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taizi/pseuds/taizi
Summary: Shibata Katsumi is a bully, but his soulmate thinks he’s a better person than that. Hewantsto be a better person than that.He thinks he can start right here.





	someday i'll be so damn sublime

**Author's Note:**

> a companion piece to my kitanishinatsu soulmate au ! you can probably read this one without having read that one first, but you'll miss some of the context
> 
> dedicated to @owletstarlet on tumblr, who was more invested in tanubata than literally anyone else, including me

Shibata Katsumi is a bully. He figures it out when he’s nine years old, a few hours after he snatched little Natsume’s phone away and held it up out his reach, and thinking about it makes his stomach twist like it swallowed something sour.

His friends were laughing while he did it, but Natsume’s eyes were so big and dark and scared that Katsumi knew it was mean. He knew and he did it anyway.

It’s just--

Everyone else in Katsumi’s class is soulmates with someone they get to see every day. Classmates or neighbors or kids just a stone’s throw away from home. When they write notes to each other, it’s just for fun things, things like “where should we go after school” and “did you see the new episode last night?”

But Katsumi’s Kaname lives far away from him. He’s nine, and he’s never met his other half even once. And there’s good reasons for it, Katsumi knows that-- but it still hurts, an ache like a bruise somewhere in his chest that he keeps pressing on.

And then Natsume transferred in, shy and soft-spoken, sweater sleeves dipping past his hands almost to his fingers. And rumors flew around about who he was and why he came here, but Katsumi couldn’t care less about any of _that._ This was another boy who sat apart from everyone else at lunch and wrote and wrote and wrote onto his palm and his wrist and his arm and the back of his hand-- orange ink and purple and blue all mixing up clumsily, a jumbled conversation in three parts-- because these special messages were the closest he could be to his soulmate now.

Just like Katsumi.

And he was so excited to have this in common with someone else, but the excitement barely lasted the afternoon. Because, just his luck-- it turned out that Natsume was a freak.

“He talks to himself,” one of the girls in their class whispered to her friend. “Something must be wrong with him.”

“He told me he sees things that aren’t there,” her friend replied, brow wrinkled. “That’s scary. I think we should tell the teacher.”

And it wasn’t _fair_. Natsume was always writing, always being written to, while Katsumi was lucky to get a word or two from Kaname on a _good_ day. Why should someone like _him_ have a soulmate who liked him so much? Why did he even come here and get Katsumi’s hopes up in the first place?

 _Natsume’s weird,_ Katsumi’s friends all said, _Natsume’s a liar._ And Katsumi laughed along, made fun, spread rumors with everyone else, and tried to ignore the burn of hurt or betrayal that simmered away in his stomach. He couldn’t ignore it _perfectly,_ though, or he wouldn’t have scowled at Natsume everytime he whispered silently into class like a ghost.

And he wouldn’t have snatched his phone away that afternoon.

He doesn’t know what he was expecting, when he put the phone to his ear to greet the weirdo’s soulmate. Katsumi _knew_ it was wrong from the stricken look on Natsume’s face, but all of his friends were snickering like it was a great joke, and Katsumi thought it couldn’t have been _that_ bad.

But Natsume’s other half-- other _halves--_ reacted explosively, so angry their voices were shaped like teeth and fire and all sorts of other things that could bite. They didn’t care what Katsumi said, they didn’t care when he backpedaled and tried to explain, tried to justify himself. They only cared about what they could probably hear behind him, Natsume teetering on the verge of tears, voice only barely not breaking when he cried out for Katsumi to stop. This quiet boy, inches shorter than even the girls in their class, who had never raised his voice in anger or hurt for all the weeks Katsumi had known him, who had never done anything to anyone except show up.

And, abruptly, Katsumi thought of Kaname. He thought of Kaname getting bullied because he didn’t fit in, of bigger kids taking his stuff and holding down his arms. He imagined how he would feel if _he_ was on the phone when it happened, forever away and furious and _useless._

Katsumi’s friends were still jeering, but Katsumi suddenly felt very cold. He passed the phone back, trying not to listen to Natsume’s shuddering breaths. He thought of Kaname every single step of the way home and was blinking back tears by the time he got there.

He shut himself up in his bedroom, huddling under the blanket on his bed. He dug under his pillow for the pen there, and wrote across his palm, _I did something horrible today._

He wasn’t expecting anything back. Kaname didn’t reply to his greeting earlier that morning. But to his surprise, green ink spilled across his hand in reply.

_What happened?_

If writing could whisper, that was what Kaname’s always did. Katsumi traced the letters reverently, always greedy of them when they were from Kaname, and then wrote, _Is it okay if I call you?_

Almost a full two minutes later, Kaname said, _Okay._

So Katsumi ran downstairs for the cordless phone, and huddled on the sofa, and told his soulmate the whole story. And Kaname listened gravely, not asking any questions until Katsumi was finished. And when he did, it was a soft, _“Why did you do that?”_

“I don’t know,” Katsumi muttered, even though it was at least partly a lie.

He did it because he was angry and hurt, because he wanted Natsume to be like him. He didn’t want Natsume to be _strange_ , to be someone all of Katsumi’s other friends jeered about behind their hands, to be someone Katsumi couldn’t be friends with unless he wanted to be jeered about, too. It wasn’t _fair_.

But he couldn’t say that to Kaname, because-- trying to form the words out loud made him realize how stupid they were. Katsumi hated feeling stupid, so he didn’t say them. He sulked, and picked at a loose thread on the arm of the sofa, and listened to Kaname’s silence.

 _“Are you going to apologize to him?”_ Kaname asked next, each word very neat and careful, like organized steps across a wobbly bridge.

“I dunno,” Katsumi said sullenly. “Maybe. It would have to be when no one else is around, though. So they don’t see me talking to him. I don’t want my friends to think I’m a weirdo, too.”

Another pause-- this one longer than the last-- and Kaname said, _“If you think that’s best.”_

“What do _you_ think?”

He regretted his tone immediately. Kaname was like one of the delicate creatures that washed into the tidepools on the beach, creatures that were thin and brittle and pulled up into their shells the second they sensed danger. Katsumi’s mother would usually give him a stern look when he started to get impatient with his shy soulmate, so he knew when to check himself, but mother wasn’t there and Katsumi might have just screwed up.

Katsumi opened his mouth to apologize, to try to salvage it, but Kaname surprised him again.

 _“It doesn’t matter what I think, Katsumi,”_ his other half said, his voice soft but only in the way running water was soft before it picked up speed, before it turned the bend and met a roaring river. _“You’re not like me. You’re not scared of anything. You’re so cool. I don’t know why you were mean to Natsume, but I know you’ll make it better. You make everything better.”_

Katsumi clutched the phone and felt something burning in his heart and his lungs and his eyes that might have been guilt and might have been vicious joy and might have been pride, or maybe it was all three.

“‘Course I do,” he managed after a minute, when he was sure his voice wouldn’t break. “You’re a smart guy, Kaname.”

Kaname laughed, but it turned into a cough halfway through, and the thing burning inside him cooled into familiar worry. Kaname murmured that his dad wanted him off the phone now, and Katsumi told him goodbye, and flopped over sideways on the sofa with the phone clutched in his hand, and stared up at the ceiling like it would give him all the answers.

He lied to Kaname again. He was scared of a lot of things. He couldn’t make everything better. He definitely wasn’t cool. But Kaname believed in all of those things, and if _Kaname_ believed them--

Well, then it was Katsumi’s job to make them true.

The next morning, Katsumi steps into class before the bell with a mission in mind. His friends wave him over to their cluster by the window, grouped around a handheld game and having a fun time, but Katsume looks right past them. He spots Natsume in the farthest corner of the room, his bag in his lap and his empty hands folded in front of him and his eyes gazing past the window at something a million miles away.

Katsumi heads straight for him.

The other kids are already whispering by the time Natsume notices him. Katsumi hates the shadow of fear that makes his brown eyes go dark, hates the way Natsume pulls into himself like one of the shelled creatures from the tidepools, hates that it’s his fault.

“Sorry I was mean to you,” Katsumi says. He’s careful to say it gently, the way he talks to Kaname on the phone when Kaname’s having a bad day. “I wanted to be your friend.”

Natsume stares up at him like he has absolutely no reference for this. His eyes dart away, once, at something behind Katsumi, like he’s waiting for this to be another cruel prank and Katsumi’s friends will give it away and get it over with if he gives them an opening.

But nothing happens. Their classmates whisper and stare, Katsumi stands beside his desk and waits, and Natsume comes to a decision.

“It’s okay,” Natsume says. He even smiles, tentative and hopeful and setting himself up for hurt like he doesn’t know any better. “We can still be friends.”

Shibata Katsumi is a bully, but his soulmate thinks he’s a better person than that. He _wants_ to be a better person than that.

He thinks he can start right here.


End file.
